This morning has seen some intense downpours across parts of south east England.

They developed across parts of East Anglia in the early hours of the morning, with further areas of heavy showers across Sussex, Surrey, Kent and the south of London following later.

The showers were very heavy in places with thunderstorms, hail, and torrential rain reported, giving high rainfall totals and localised flooding in some areas.

The high rainfall totals were caused by an area of low pressure and a plume of warm air that moved in from the near continent accompanied by light winds, meaning that the showers were slow moving.

Several spots have seen more than half of their average monthly rainfall for the whole of July in just one hour.

Below you can see some of the highest recorded hourly rainfall totals from Environment Agency rain gauges through the morning of Monday 28th July 2014:

Great Dunmow

Essex

43 mm (4am to 5am)

Isfield

Sussex

37 mm (8.30am to 9:30am)

Ardingly

Sussex

35 mm (8.30am to 9:30am)

Santon Downham

Suffolk

33mm (4am to 5am)

Weirwood

Sussex

28 mm (9am to 10am)

Northolt

London

20mm (7am to 8am)

The band of showery rain is now easing, but a yellow warning for rainfall remains in place for the south east of the UK as the risk of seeing some further isolated downpours remains.

In addition, the far south east of England could see further persistent and perhaps locally heavy rain later today and overnight, with parts of Kent and Sussex most at risk. Conditions across all areas should then improve through tomorrow.

The rainfall radar network is a great way of looking back at how weather systems affect the UK.

Here we see rainfall radar imagery from 00:00 GMT on Sunday 10 March to 09:00 GMT on Tuesday 12 March. It shows snow showers affecting much of the UK while an area of heavier snowfall affects northern France, the Channel Islands and the far south-east of England.

What’s particularly interesting is that it shows really well how the showers and the heavier snowfall across the south were moving in totally different directions. The snow showers can be seen moving in from the North Sea on north-easterly winds. Meanwhile, the heavier and more persistent snowfall was moving in from the south-west as an area of low pressure tracked across France. You can see how these two systems collided over Sussex and Kent, resulting in the heavy snowfall here.

At the very end of the sequence the wind changes direction again over the north of the UK, with the snow showers being blown across Scotland from the north.